Update: There was a kickoff meeting today on the EMU renovation referendum vote. It seems the efforts to influence the outcome are still chugging along. An anonymous source asked that I post this:
1) The attendees, most of them from ASUO exec staff, made it clear that they should present information in a neutral way in order to avoid getting in trouble. However, amongst each other they were very clear that they all supported the renovation. So the theme of the meeting was “we all support the renovation, but this campaign has to appear neutral in order for the referendum to actually pass” not “let’s just inform the student body, regardless of the outcome.”
2) They’re planning to offer prizes to whichever greek house has the highest voter turn-out. This is for overall turnout, not for yes votes, but I still think it’s completely wrong that they would offer prizes exclusively to their preferred demographic. Imagine Romney exclusively paying wealthy Caucasians to vote, but then claiming it was okay because he couldn’t control which way they voted.
11/7/2012: Nick Ekblad has the scoop in the Commentator:
A supposedly “informative kickoff meeting” for the EMU referendum vote will be taking place TOMORROW (WEDNESDAY), November 7th at 3pm in the Mills International Center. Learn more about the renovation and how you can get involved. The ASUO Executive’s plan for the following week of voting will be addressed, as well as how students will be educated and informed. Students can’t have a voice if students don’t attend!
Meanwhile the details of how exactly UO and G. Gordon Libby Robin Holmes came to hire the RBI election consultants are still hidden. There are a lot of public records requests in for documents. My guess is that John Ehrlichman Dave Hubin and the public records office use the usual fees and redactions methods to stall on releasing them until after the students vote to tax themselves to fund the renovation.
UO happily spent $17,000 in student money trying to manipulate this election, but Hubin wouldn’t give the Register Guard a $172.21 fee waiver for the documents explaining it. Wouldn’t want any informed voting, would we. 11/7/2012.
Groundhog Day.
This time around, maybe the plumbers are hopeful of getting their questionable activities covered by the New York Times.